Absolutely terrible race. No good, awful, horrible, terrible. All on me; race organization and the other competitiors rocked.

This was an early race; had me up at 6:15AM. Following what I’m dubbing the most stressful work-related week of my life, that’s not a good thing. I was tired, my brain hasn’t been hitting on all cylinders, and that was clear today.

The race started at the typical spot. I found myself somewhere around 10th place up the first hill, and then it all went to shit. On the first lap alone, I crashed six or seven times. Crashes… Not just popping out of the pedals or something that simple… I went down. Some of them hurt. I finished that lap in roughly the same place as I started, having gone back and forth with riders who I was faster than, but could not stay in front of because I couldn’t stay on my bike…. Very frustrating.

Note: This race is about twice as long as the Wednesday ones… Fitness therefore plays a much larger part since most of the beginner field is gassed after about six miles.

Onto the second lap… My confidence was shot, the bike felt like it was handling horribly (front end wouldn’t grip anything)… I very nearly didn’t start this lap, but I’m glad I did. As expected and as usual, my legs pulled me back into the race. I did a much better job simply staying upright, and picked off a handful of folks. I still crashed twice, one of them being pretty bad, but I didn’t lose any places due to either mishap.

I finished the race in 5th place, three minutes behind the first four riders who were clumped together. Had I not crashed that many times, I’m not sure I would have even had that additional three minutes… Despite racing horribly, I think I placed right where I belonged. I’m a bit down on the race as a whole and I’m very sore from hitting the ground that many times, but I got another pint glass to add to the collection so all is not bad.

My next race is a track mile on Wednesday and then NOTHING FOR TWO WEEKS!!! Alaska and Seattle! I so desperately need a vacation… It has come at the perfect time.

[GPS] [Results] [Pics to come]